Keep movement to a minimum – Your goal of your website is to deliver enough information that will close a new customer… why would you want to distract them from your goal with someone moving all over your screen. Nix it.
On Page Music… Sorry but no. – I have heard every excuse in the book from clients as to why they should keep the music on their page. Do not fall into this trap for the love of God. Auto-start music is annoying to anyone listening to their own tunes or in an office setting, or just plain scares the crap out of someone who is sitting in silence. No matter how much you think it fits your product, nix the tunes. Turn off your music and you will see your bounce rate (% of people leaving your site as soon as they open your page) plummet!
Annoying Pop-Ups – Its no surprise that people hate pop-ups, you definitely don’t want to piss someone off that you are trying to gain as a customer. Although, pop-ups can be a good lead gen tool to capture information, but if you decide to go this route, use this tactic on the page exit.
Background Images – If you want your website to look like a junior high school project or a 13 year old’s Myspace page from 3 years ago, then use background images… Otherwise keep your look sleek and clean. This will also benefit you with faster download time
Manage your Media – You’ll surely want to have some photos and videos on your website… Compress your photo files and make sure the file sizes are small so your page will load fast. People will only wait a few seconds before trying a different page. Also, embed all your video code from a site like YouTube.
Organization – Organize your site for ease of use and for search engines. Group relevant information together, organize for an appealing look
Navigation – Have a navigation bar across the top of your page, and keep it the same throughout your site. If you have an in depth site, use bread-crumbs to follow the path the user takes through your site. This will make it easier for the user to find their way around.
Minimize clicks – Every click of a mouse could potentially mean a lost customer to you! Shorten the process and cut out any unnecessary pages. Count the steps in your sales funnel and shorten them.
Minimal scrolling – Except for lengthy articles or sales info, you should require minimal scrolling while navigating through your page, especially with calls to action and purchase information
Kill the entry pages – I know you are really proud of your graphics and animation on your entry splash page, but nobody cares. Why spend so much time and energy getting someone to your page, only to put up another barrier to get to your content. Lose it!
Home Button – Simple and self explanatory. Have a home button on every page. Add a keyword if you can… ex. “Internet Marketing Home”
Fonts – Nobody wants to have to squint to read your text… pages are free; use another one instead of cramming too much on a page.
- Make bulleted lists.
- Break up paragraphs.
- Avoid underlines except for links.
Contact me! – This is the ultimate goal of your page right? Contact or purchase something! Make it very easy to find you, with multiple calls to action. Phone number and contact form both. Some people like the personal contact while others can’t stand it and would rather leave an email.
Links – Have links to all of your sources and references. Realize though: Every outside link that you have is a potential customer lost to the rest of the web. Use them only if they relate to your content. Also, make sure you set up the links so that they open up in a new window so the user can easily come back to your site.
Unique Content – Probably the most important thing to keep people coming back for more. Have new unique content on your site. Don’t replicate or use duplicate content from somewhere else on the web… along with being a copyright infringement, its HORRIBLE for your SEO. Learn how to write, or pay someone to do it. When speaking in internet terms: Content is King!
Testing… Testing… 1,2,3 – If you’ve read any of my other posts, I beat this dead horse all day long. Test everything you do: Load all your pages to make sure you get no errors, load from different computers or browsers, and ask outsiders from your business to look at your page to see if they can find any errors or things that look out of place. Is it easy to navigate and contact you?
These are some tips you can use when developing your website to maximize revenue and make your site easy to use for consumers, which will ultimately convert more customers.
Please contact me (954) 495-7939 or [email protected] if you would like any more information or want to schedule a free consultation.
